


Decorate This Silence

by Em_Jaye



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Ice Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: “So what is it about the idea of ice skating that you’re opposed to?” she asked, trying a more direct approach the week before Christmas. “Is it the crowds?” she asked, lying back on the weight bench. “The idea of rental footwear?"
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Comments: 34
Kudos: 201
Collections: 2020 ShieldShock Holiday Fic Exchange





	Decorate This Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eliizabethyork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliizabethyork/gifts).



> For eliizabethyork for the Shieldshock Holiday Fic Exchange. Hope you like it! 
> 
> Title is from Winter Love by Linda Gregg

Steve Rogers didn’t say no to a lot of things. Despite his reputation for being the human equivalent of an immoveable object, and despite his penchant for speeches about making the rest of the world move, for the day-to-day stuff? Steve was very agreeable.

At least, that’s what Darcy had discovered in the few weeks they’d been spending time together. Sci-fi movie marathons? Steve was there. Testing out new recipes and willing to be a guinea pig? Say no more. Losing a whole day to a fall festival with all manner of apple and pumpkin baked goods and a lumberjack tree-carving competition? Steve was up for it. For the whole first month of this very tentative, no-labels, no-expectations, more-than-friends relationship they’d been testing out, it seemed that Steve was up for just about anything she wanted to do

Almost anything.

“If you’re here on Thursday,” she’d said in the last week of November, leaning across the counter in the community kitchen to steal a crunchy tater tot from the plate he’d just filled. “We should go ice skating.”

Steve looked up, amused when she stole a second tot and popped it into her mouth. “Ice skating?” he repeated before he’d glanced out the window where the Manhattan weather was holding steady at a balmy 50° despite the time of year. “Is there even ice yet?”

She rolled her eyes. “If you go to a rink,” she laughed. “We could even be tourists and go to Rockefeller Center and skate around the big tree with everyone else.” She felt a moment of nostalgia and added, “I haven’t done that in forever.”

But he hadn’t been around that Thursday to go ice skating or do anything else, because there’d been a callout and he’d been on the other side of the globe and by the time he’d returned, she’d forgotten she’d suggested it.

It came up again about a week later. When she was telling him how Cameron was stressing about ending up in the hot-seat and having to choose the fourth-quarter team-building activity. “I told him to make the agents all go skating,” she said while Steve settled down on to the couch to watch _Gremlins_ with her (her favorite way to slide into the Christmas season). “Which, by the way, we never got around to.”

“Doesn’t sound like we need to if you’re going to crash Cameron’s team outing,” Steve said evenly, not quite looking at her as she curled her feet underneath her and reached to bring the bowl of popcorn onto the couch between them.

She snorted and shook her head. “I’m definitely not sneaky enough to crash a party full of secret-agents-in-training.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he joked lightly and turned to face her long enough to tap the tip of her nose. “You could charm your way into anything.”

Darcy felt an uncharacteristic blush burn her cheeks and she scooched down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder to watch the movie.

By the time she went to bed, the pleasure of getting to watch Steve experience one of her favorite movies for the first time, partnered with the goodnight kiss he’d left her with, had made her forget he’d dodged her request a second time.

“So what is it about the idea of ice skating that you’re opposed to?” she asked, trying a more direct approach the week before Christmas.

Steve nearly dropped the barbell he’d been loading for her. “What?”

They were alone in the gym—one of her favorite places to spend time with him. Not because she was channeling her inner Olivia Newton-John any more than usual these days. But because she could watch Steve lift a comical amount of weight and hardly break a sweat.

And that did more for her than she cared to admit.

Not to mention he was an excellent trainer and in just the few weeks they’d been hanging out, she’d significantly leveled up her lifting game.

“Is it the crowds?” she asked, lying back on the weight bench. “The idea of rental footwear? I know that bothers some people but—”

“I never said I was opposed,” he remarked, his attention on the bar as he set it carefully on the stand.

She smiled up at him. “So, you want to go?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say if it I didn’t mean it,” he said his hands hovering above hers as she lifted the barbell into her first press.

Darcy frowned again and groaned slightly under the weight. “Okay, but you didn’t say it—”

“You need to concentrate,” he reminded her lightly. “And remember to exhale when you’re pushing up. Don’t hold your breath.”

She finished her set and sat up, forcing herself not to get distracted this time. “Why won’t you go skating with me?” she asked bluntly, spinning around on the bench so they were looking at one another.

Steve opened his mouth and the closed it again before his shoulders dropped. “It’s…embarrassing,” he admitted. “But I don’t, um…” he glanced down and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how to skate.”

Darcy blinked. “You don’t?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t.”

“But you’re…” she motioned to him. “I mean—look at you. Aren’t you good at everything even remotely athletic?”

“No,” he scoffed. “Not if I’ve never done it before.”

“But you grew up in New York!” she laughed. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” Steve rolled his shoulder and avoided her eyes. She felt guilty about the smile still playing on her lips. “I just never learned. When I was a kid it was always too cold or too dangerous or I was too sick and we could never afford skates anyway, and…honestly, I’m not really interested in trying for the first time in front of a thousand people at Rockefeller Center.”

“Okay,” she said right away, wishing she’d let it go weeks ago, not wanting to think about tiny, sickly Steve unable to go and play with the other kids. “No problem.”

“Sorry,” he offered an embarrassed smile. “It’s not that I don’t _want_ to take you skating,” he said. “I would love to do that with you, but I don’t…” he coughed. “I should just get over it and deal with being embarrassed for a few days but—"

Darcy got up from the weight bench and crossed the few feet to him and took his hands in hers. “What I _want,_ ” she said quietly, “is to spend time with you.” She stretched up onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips to his. “And I definitely don’t want to do something that might embarrass you.”

Steve smiled and kissed her again, properly this time.

***

“Hey, big brother,” Darcy called as she let herself into Tony’s lab. She managed to take two steps before a blast of firepower rocketed past her ear and she hit the ground.

“Whoa!” Tony’s yell of surprise was chased by the sound of his feet as he raced across the lab to pull her up. “Sorry kid,” he said while she dusted herself off and her heartrate tried to return to normal. “I thought I locked the door.”

“What the hell was that?” Darcy demanded, scanning the lab for her attacker.

“Buggy suit,” Tony said with a dismissive wave over his shoulder toward the few members of the Iron Legion he’d been repairing and upgrading. “Not so great at monitoring hostiles.” He stopped and looked at his half-sister, eyeing her carefully. “Unless of course, you’re here to yell at me about something. In which case,” his gaze traveled back to his bots, “their monitoring capability is _amazing_ and I have to dial it back down.”

Darcy stared at him, her eyes shooting from the bots to her brother and back again. “Uh…no,” she said after a minute. “I’m not here to yell at you,” she frowned thoughtfully. “Not yet, at least.”

Behind him, the legionnaire on the right raised its left arm to fire again. “Hey!” Tony turned around and pointed at it. “At ease. Take five.” He turned back to Darcy and smiled. “What’s up?”

“I need your help with something.”

***

The plan had been to do this on Christmas Eve—or as close to it as possible—but life got in the way. Life in the form of another call-out and a slew of Avengers Tower Christmas parties and more end-of-year commitments that kept Darcy from inviting Steve out for a surprise.

So it wasn’t a Christmas surprise, or even a New Year’s Eve surprise. It was a first-week-of-January-because-that’s-the-best-we-could-manage surprise. Lacking in poetry, but Steve didn’t seem too upset when Darcy asked him to meet her in the tower’s parking garage for a drive out of town.

“You’re not driving me out here to kill me, are you?” he joked when the city finally disappeared behind them and the long, dark road stretched out ahead.

Darcy looked over from the driver’s seat and grinned. “In this sweater?” she asked, glancing down a the white cowlneck she’d received from her mother for Christmas. “Don’t be silly. You’re safe with me, Rogers.”

The sight of his soft smile filled her with a spiral of warmth that had nothing to do with the heat coming from the vents.

He closed his eyes while she led him across the parking lot and through the front door. She kept his hand in hers and steered them through the lobby and until they reached the bench where she’d set everything up that afternoon. “Okay,” she said, letting go of his hand. “You can open your eyes.”

Steve did as he was asked and blinked as he looked around, half in confusion, half because Darcy hadn’t felt the need to turn every last light on. “Where…are we?”

“We’re at the most recent addition to the Stark Industries collection of real estate endeavors,” she said with a smile. “Also known as Buddy’s Nice Ice Skating Complex and former home of the pee-wee hockey team, The Del-Valley Thunder.”

Steve blinked again. “That’s…a lot to unpack.”

She pointed to the bench behind him and gave him a little push. “Sit!”

He sat and looked to this right where she’d placed a box with a red bow. “What is this?”

“A necessity,” she said very seriously. “ _Not_ a present. Since we said no presents.”

A smile tugged at his lips as he pulled the large box onto his lap. “It has a bow on it.”

“Necessities can be well-dressed, Steve,” Darcy said seriously and motioned for him to continue opening the box.

When he pulled back the tissue paper to reveal the pair of hockey skates she’d purchased for him, he let out an affectionate sigh. “Darcy…”

“Juuuuuust humor me,” she sang as she crouched down and beckoned for one skate once he slipped his shoe off. “If these don’t feel like they were absolutely made for you, then…” she frowned and stopped herself. “I don’t know. I’ll owe you a dollar.”

Steve laughed and slid his feet into the skates, watching closely while she laced them up like her stepfather had showed her on her first pair. Nice and tight around the ankle, little wiggle room at the top of the foot. “Okay,” Steve said slowly, warily. “They actually do feel really comfortable. How did you…”

“I borrowed the boots from your uniform,” she informed him plainly. “And printed an insert based on their insoles so the skates are basically already broken in.” She looked up after double-knotting the laces and grinned. “Neat, huh?”

“Neat,” he echoed. “And then you…” he looked around at the empty building. “ _Bought_ this Nice..Ice...”

“Buddy’s Nice Ice Skating Complex,” she finished for him with a nod. “Well, technically I made Tony buy it. But my swift intervention has actually _saved_ Buddy from foreclosure and he gets to continue to run his operation exactly as he sees fit,” she allowed herself a dramatic pause. “So long as I can borrow the rink from time to time.”

Steve’s smile returned to the corner of his lips. “You did all this to teach me how to ice skate?”

“No,” she sat back on her heels and reached for her own pair of skates that she’d stashed beside the bench on her trip there earlier. “I did this because I forgot how much I love skating and because I want to share something I love with you,” she bit back her shy smile. “Because I really like you.”

He leaned forward and brushed her hair out of her eyes, letting his fingers trail over her cheek before he pressed his lips to hers. “I really like you too,” he assured her softly when they parted. “Thank you, for doing all this.”

She was quick to lace up her own skates and pulled him out onto the ice. The rink was huge and bright from the overhead lights the cold was fresh and familiar against her face. It took half an hour to coax Steve away from the boards, to trust her enough to let her pull him along.

And they fell.

They fell a _lot._

But then they got back up. Usually laughing and kissing and sometimes doing too much of both so that they fell again.

_-fin-_


End file.
